


Let Everything Happen to You

by golden_d



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe, Children of Earth Compliant, Children of Earth Spoilers, Gen, Season 1 Spoilers, Season 2 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-12
Updated: 2010-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-31 18:09:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/golden_d/pseuds/golden_d
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tosh keeps going. There is so much left to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Everything Happen to You

Tosh survived being shot, but barely. Owen didn't make it, and that hurt her more than the bullet. They called Martha to replace him, but she wouldn't: she said she had seen enough death.

They were all shaken, even after the blood had been cleaned off the floor of the Hub and Tosh was up and walking again. Jack was frighteningly claustrophobic; Ianto would hardly leave his side, and Rhys and Gwen checked in with each other every two hours like clockwork. Toshiko flinched at any loud noises, and, when Jack moved in with Ianto, she took his place at the Hub. It was decided that they had enough medical training between the four of them to cope in emergencies, but mostly (Ianto said) Jack couldn't deal with losing another employee.

Things went on as normally as they could. And then there was a fake doctor, and Jack had a bomb in his stomach, and Gwen had a _baby_ in her stomach (her own baby this time, not some shapeshifting alien's), and Jack was shouting that they had to get out NOW NOW NOW and Ianto was kissing him and Gwen was running and Tosh sat down at her station and clutched at her laptop protectively. The Hub was all she had now. How could she go?

Ianto had to drag her out.

She screamed. She didn't want to leave Mainframe, she couldn't leave Mainframe, she didn't care that the Hub was exploding, and when Ianto grabbed her, she fought him all the way. He made it out -- so did she, but not unharmed. With third-degree burns across her body, Tosh spent the next two weeks in hospital, the ghost of Owen at her side. 

When Jack came to say goodbye, she made him tell her everything that had happened. He told her about the 456, and about Ianto, and Steven, and they both tried to cry, but neither of them could. He whispered in her ear, laying a kiss on a patch of unburned skin, and she ignored the pain and weakly squeezed his hand. And then he left.

Tosh moved back into her old flat, because she had the lease on it for another month, and despite living in the Hub had never managed to move out. She kept herself busy with rehab and doctor's appointments, and thank any god that was out there that her hands were mostly unhurt: she could type and program even when the rest of her ached.

Tosh kept going, because after all this, someone had to.

"I want to help you," she said, and Alice snarled and Alice argued and Tosh looked at her calmly and eventually Alice nodded. Together they set up the Steven Carter Memorial Foundation, for the support of research into aeronautics.  Steven, Alice said, had always liked planes. 

"I want to help you," she said, and Gwen point-blank refused. Hadn't she already suffered enough because of Torchwood? But Tosh was one of the foremost experts in alien tech, and they couldn't rebuild Torchwood without her. And they would rebuild Torchwood, she told Gwen firmly. They would rebuild Torchwood to collect knowledge, to show people the beauty beyond the stars when all else they had seen was the horror. When the present transformed into the future, the people of Earth would be ready, and they would not be afraid, but welcome it with open arms.

The twenty-first century was when everything changed.

**Author's Note:**

> I blame amand_r, who asked, "If [Tosh] were still alive, what would she be doing for TW? Would she have saved their asses in CoE?" This was supposed to be a response-drabble, but obviously it got away from me. Title is from a Rainer Maria Rilke poem. Un-beta'd.


End file.
